SCHEME ON

INTEGRATED MANAGEMENT OF PUBLIC DISTRIBUTION SYSTEM

The Department, under Public Distribution System (PDS) reforms is implementing a technology driven Central Sector Scheme, namely, Integrated Management of Public Distribution System (IM-PDS) from April 2018, having a total outlay of Rs. 127.3 Crore for implementation of the scheme in all States/UTs for a period of two years. However, the validity of the scheme has been extended up to 31.03.2023 without any escalation in the total outlay for the scheme.

2.         The main objective of this scheme is to implement nation-wide portability of the ration cards issued by the States/UTs under the National Food Security Act, 2013 (NFSA), for anywhere distribution of subsidised foodgrains to the ration card holders in India. Presently, the system is better known as the ‘One Nation One Ration Card (ONORC) Plan’. The ONORC plan empowers the NFSA beneficiaries, particularly migrant beneficiaries, to lift their entitled foodgrains from any ePoS enabled Fair Price Shop (FPS), anywhere in the country, by using their same/existing ration card issued under NFSA after biometric/Aadhaar authentication on an electronic Point of Sale (ePoS) device.

3.         So far, the ONORC plan is enabled in 35 States/UTs covering around 77 Crore beneficiaries (almost 96.8% of total NFSA population) in the country, who now have an option to access the Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS) and their entitled foodgrains from any nearby FPS to them in these 35 States/UT. Further, constant efforts are being made to enable the ONORC plan in State of Assam to complete the Pan-India reach of ONORC for all NFSA beneficiaries in the country.

4.         As part of the implementation, under the IM-PDS scheme, the Department has set up a Central Repository of all ration cards and beneficiaries’ data in the country which besides facilitating the national portability transactions, is also providing a clear list of eligible ration card holders/beneficiaries for national portability under ONORC. The scheme is being implemented in technical partnership of National Informatics Centre (NIC), which is also supporting the States/UTs in upgradation of ePoS software, integration with central IM-PDS and Annavitran portals, availability of ration cards/beneficiaries’ data in Central Repository, requisite testing of national portability transactions with the support of CPMU team of the Department.